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A PC Case with External Power Supply?
aralin asks: "I am building a new home server (web server, email, source code repository, ...) and don't really need that much performance, but would like to make it ultra quiet. I have found some quiet, one platter harddrives and can get a lower-end graphics card without a fan. I underclock the CPU so it never really needs cooling, besides the load on the computer will be quite low, most of the time. What I cannot get around easily is the power supply. They are quite noisy and the quiet ones are really expensive. I'm just not going to put half of my budget on a power supply. Do you know any company that manufactures PC cases with external power supply or do you know any other cheap solution to a quiet PC?"
"So, I recently looked at the Mac Mini and it got me thinking, why couldn't PCs have an external power supply, like the Mac Mini or notebooks. Would it be so hard to make a case like that? It could be even smaller than the typical Mini-ITX cases, and with all the bricks from routers and external harddrives and other devices, I wouldn't mind one more lying around in exchange for the bliss of absolutely quiet PC in my bedroom."
You can get an external power brick just like a laptop. Normal ATX connection, usually lower watts.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
$60 is quite reasonable and it's very quiet. Considering how little you'll be loading it, the fan will probably never reach past 20dB. That's basically silent from 4 feet away sitting on the floor next to a desk.
Your idea would require a LOT of wire running from the PS on the floor for the different voltages, and the PS would still have to be well ventilated and thus off the carpet. There isn't much of a market for your idea at a $40 price. The near-silent Zalmans and the fan-less supplies already have the higher price points covered.
Finally, some people do put their systems in a closet or adjacent room and drill holes for the cables. Not much point in only separating the PS if the hard drive will still make a miniscule amount of noise. People who care that much just move the whole system instead.
Power supplies put out a lot of current at relatively low voltage. Typical power supplies use 18AWG copper wire on the pigtails going to the motherboard. At about 6.5ohms/1000' I figure about a .035V drop on a 1' pigtail with 4 +5V wires (5V @ 22A, an old PS I have here, at max load). If you just extended that to 15' you'd have 15x the drop, or about .5V. So your "5V" would be 4.5V, which is probably out of spec. The problem is worse at lower voltages or higher currents (I think the latest motherboards use mostly 12V partly for this reason).
You'd need a gang of 4+ 12ga or 10ga wires to keep the drop reasonable over a 15' distance. Now you're starting to see why power is distributed across the country at hundreds of thousands of volts, and newer cars are going to 24V or 48V systems.
Muuuch easier to get a supply with only one fan (no need for a 550wa monster for a small system!) and if necessary replace it with a quiet fan. I got some panaflos and replaced several of mine and they were silent.
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
Here's a photo tour. A small review. A larger review.
You also might want to ask on the forums at Silent PC review. There are people there who have a lot of experience building silent PCs and will be able to let you know if there is an external power supply that would fit your requirements.
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You get a good, quiet PSU with the case, and there is even a knob where you can set the fan speed. The hd are mounted on rubber washers, not directly on metal, so even at full spin they are not noisy. You also get a heat duct that drains the cpu heat outside the case.
The Sonata 2 ships with one 120mm fan, I advise you to add a second (plenty of sockets on the case). Big fans turn slowly, which is less noisy.
This is what I have at home, and if you unplug the blue leds there is no way to tell if the power is on unless you put your hand behind the psu fan.
This being said, I advise you to always put the psu at the top of your list when you buy a pc. Good, reliable power will give your hd a longer life.
lucm, indeed.
I don't suppose google has been of any help, has it?
http://www.google.com/search?q=quiet+psu
I seemed to find a pretty quiet PSU pretty easy, dunno about you:
http://www.endpcnoise.com
Because while an external PSU might be cool, you're really only trying to solve the noise problem.
Kurdt
I'm not anti-social. Just pro-technology.
I got sick of not having what you described, so I partnered with a company to make them. (obviously I have a commercial interest).
You can see one of our cases reviewed on EPIAcenter.com right now.. I think it's pretty close to what you want, and if it isn't, a few minutes on the phone can have it customized any way you want.
Boot off flash and NFS mount a partition to a server in another room and you have your perfectly silent PC.
The power supply is a hybrid; get a DC/DC converter from a company like mini-box.com, then get one of their external notebook-style power adapters.
..don't panic
You mentioned Mini-ITX in your article... Have you looked AT ALL into products designed to be used with Mini-ITX boards? There are numerous ATX compliant power supplies that operate using DC/DC conversion and only need a single 12V input, and most vendors that sell such DC/DC power supplies (such as mini-box.com) also sell high-wattage 12V supplies too.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Shuttle's ST62K has an external power supply, and uses socket 478 cpus:
Review at Silent PC Review
Shuttle Product Page
$215 at Newegg
I've only owned SilenX's fans, but I'm EXTREMELY pleased with them. A 92mm 14dba fan and 120mm 14dba fan (~17dba combined) quieted my system considerably while actually lowering temps. I haven't tried their PSUs, but I'm expecting one any day now and have read plenty of great reviews of them.
You really can't beat the Seasonic S12 series. Extremely low noise (silent for most purposes under normal conditions), clean power, high-efficency (less heat / wasted power), active PFC (easier on the power lines), auto 120/240 voltage.
The S12 comes in a 330W version that should be fine for your PC. It runs around $55-$65 on the 'Egg or other online stores.
Pair it with a nice case (Antec 3000SLK or perhaps P180), a decent CPU heatsink (Scythe Ninja, Zalman, or a number of others), and a decent mobo/GPU (no fan), and a nice drive (Samsung is the best, Maxtor/Seagate/WD FDB drives can be pretty quiet as well), and you have a nice quiet system.
Check out http://silentpcreview.com/
The main limitation with these PSUs is the number of drives you can use. This Morex has only one connector for desktop optical and hard drives (and a couple of smaller connectors for floppy and mobile drives), but I've managed to use a HD and a DVDRW drive with a dual adapter. On the other hand, if you need more power, I think Morex makes these for up to 200 W.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I use an old desktop PC to do this job. I salvaged it from an office. Hardware is:
This runs my email, internal web server, internal DNS and DHCP, file server, print spooler, version control, and so on. It never even notices the load from 3 concurrent users.
The Deskpro EN SFF has just one, small fan in the power supply. The Seagate drive is nice and quiet.
I am sat 1 metre from the machine as I write this, the rest of the house is silent, and all I can hear is a low whirring noise from the fan. The central heating radiator in the other corner of the room makes more noise.